An Española man will spend 13 years in prison after being sentenced by a federal judge in a case of drugs, guns and dynamite.
Mario Valdez, 35, pleaded guilty in January to federal charges of possession of a controlled substance, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, felon in possession of a firearm and felon in possession of explosive material.
Per the plea deal signed by federal prosecutor David Hirsch, the maximum sentence was 13 years. When District Judge Kea Riggs sentenced him on May 13, she sentenced him to that maximum. Following release, he will be on supervised release for three years.
Valdez was previously charged in state court with murder in 2021 for allegedly shooting and killing Fernando Martinez, 35, of Española, following a drug deal gone wrong in Chamita. Valdez allegedly opened fire on a Chevy Tahoe with six people inside, killing Martinez, after his father attacked one of the people buying drugs from him with a knife. Prosecutors with the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office dropped the murder case and gave no reason in court documents.
The case
According to the plea deal, on Aug. 1, 2023, Valdez was caught with 45 grams of cocaine base while driving in Santa Fe County and officers also found three guns in his car.
While at the Rio Arriba County Detention Center, between Oct. 15, 2023 and Oct. 18, 2023, he placed a series of calls, which were recorded, including one where he asked a woman to move firearms and explosives from his house. Two days after the last call, officers raided his house and found the six sticks of dynamite and guns, according to the plea deal.
The dynamite was exploded shortly thereafter.
Valdez’s attorney asked for a lighter sentence than 13 years, noting in a sentencing memorandum that Valdez had been “awakened a second time” and that he was about to be sentenced “because his lifestyle caught up to him.”
“He knows that this Court can see his crimes but asks this Court to know that he is not expendable,” his attorney, federal public defender Dennis Candelaria wrote. “Mr. Valdez’s life pattern provides the most hope for his future. He does not want to be institutionalized. He has been sober since his arrest despite the amount of drugs that pass through Cibola County Correctional Center.”
One state case
A magistrate case from 2023 for four drug crimes and one gun possession charge was dismissed and then refilled at the end of 2023, and then prosecutors asked for a continuance in February 2024, but nothing has been scheduled in the case since then.